


Total Knockout

by WhisperingRoseKnight



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, BUT!!!, Blake will be with Adam at first, College AU, Depictions of Abuse, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I will add tags as I go along, IT'S GAY, Kickboxing au, Things happen and she will leave him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:28:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26609824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingRoseKnight/pseuds/WhisperingRoseKnight
Summary: Yang struggles to juggle her personal life with everything else, taking a break only when it comes to her sport. But now there's a new club, with new faces, new styles that enter the trials. And the sense of a new adventure that gives her goosebumps when she looks into glowing amber eyes as they meet in the middle of the mat. A smirk is sent her way and Yang accepts the challenge. A sense of adventure, sure, but there's a hint of something else.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 28
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

"You guys won't be ready if you don't get your asses in gear!"

Yang groaned and tried to pace herself while she did step-ups on the tyres left in a circle on the floor of her father's club.

"The trials are this weekend. I won't let you compete if you aren't ready," Taiyang announced, eyes narrowing on Yang.

Okay, fine. So what if she skipped a few classes? She had to take off so that she could study for upcoming tests at the time… well, that's the excuse she used whenever her father called to get her to go train again. Her form hasn't slipped that much, her father was just exaggerating when he pointed it out earlier. As always.

Taiyang believed in keeping the mind and body energised at all times. 'That makes for a healthy soul,' he told the class on the very first lesson of the year. So basically, Yang had to juggle college, her job and training as well as seeing to Ruby. 

Ruby is still recovering from a few injuries and trying to keep that girl in bed to recover is like trying to stop a flood with your bare body - it just ain't happening. At least Weiss visits Ruby and takes Zwei out for walks when Yang is unable to. 

"Yang, I swear to the gods, if you don't get your head in the game, you're not going this weekend," her father threatened when he saw her slowing down.

Yang rolled her eyes and sped up again, muttering, "Goddamnit, old man."

The class was the usual, lots of sweat and lots of complaining from the students and ended with a collective sigh of relief.

"So, you ready for this weekend?" Nora slid up to Yang's side just as class ended, throwing a few jabs at Yang's shoulder.

Still unwrapping her hands, Yang ignored the punches and said, "Yeah, I hope so. I heard that there is gonna be a new club entering this year so I am a bit excited. Maybe they will have a student in my division."

Because of her height, Yang always had trouble finding opponents with the same weight as her. Growing up, she always had to fight people older than her or a higher belt than her. The one year, she had an opponent, Emerald, who was much lighter than her but still offered to fight Yang. After that fight, Emerald was in every category but in Yang's. 

Nora stopped at that, perking up almost immediately. "Oh, hell yeah!" Throwing a fist in the air before bringing it down, she walked in front of Yang, eagerness oozing off her in waves. "Maybe we will get a chance to fight someone beside us, I'm tired of seeing you walking into my punches." Nora gave Yang a shit-eating grin as she jumped out of Yang's reach as the blonde tried to make a grab for her.

"Excuse me," Yang chuckled as she started rolling up her wraps. "I'll have you know that I beat you more times than you beat me. And besides, I am not the one that spat my gum guard out at the referee."

She grinned.

"That was one time! A bee flew into my mouth and I wasn't sure if I monched on it or if it just hit my gum guard and flew away… so I had to be sure and the ref wasn't listening to me," whining and throwing her arms up, Nora huffed, knowing that she never won arguments when that came up.

Yang sat down and started packing her protective gear into her tog bag but stopped when she couldn't find her water. She twisted her body around to see if she left it on the mat but saw nothing. 

"Uh huh sure, it didn't have anything to do with that 9 point lead of mine, huh?" Yang questioned, lifting up her bag and the rest of her gear to see if she can find her bottle.

"Nope, not at all. Think fast!" 

Without hesitation, Yang raised her hands in front of her face and spotted the incoming object. Snatching it from the air, Yang saw that it was a water bottle.  _ Her  _ water bottle. And it was almost empty. Before glaring at Nora, who was innocently packing away her things, Yang took the last swig of the contents in the bottle, almost wincing at the fact that Nora drank from it before her. 

Soon after, they were saying goodbye and Yang stood outside of the club with one of the younger students while her father locked up the place. She could have left already, been home with Ruby. Out of habit, she guessed.

"Your father on his way, Roy?" Taiyang called from the door, earning the little red haired boy's attention. 

Roy, just turned 12 and on his orange belt already, fiddled a bit with the zippers on his bag, almost a nervous reaction to Yang's father's question. "The last I heard, yeah," Roy squeaked out, glancing over at her. 

Yang's eyebrows rose a bit, impressed. The last time she saw him, the only forms of communication the kid gave was a nod or shake of the head. She smiled softly at him to ease him a bit, which worked as his shoulders lowered with released tension. 

A few minutes passed and Roy's father picked him up, leaving Taiyang and Yang in the parking lot outside the club. 

While tugging her gloves on and sliding her arms through the smaller straps of her tog bag, Taiyang walked up to her, worry in his eyes. 

"What?" Yang just about groans. She hates when people look at her like that, like she needs to relax or something. A few people already told her something similar and she didn't want to hear it from him too. 

He held his hands up, giving a tired smile. "Nothing, just wanted to see how you were doing?" He looked a lot greyer than the last time she saw him. Older and more tired, she realised. "I spoke to Ruby this morning. Says she is feeling better thanks to you."

Throwing her leg over her bike, she responded with a short, "Yeah, I'm fine and she's fine. There's no need to check up on us," before starting the engine. It was easier when other people were around, easy to pretend that everything was fine, easy to just take him as her sensei and not as her father while they were in the club. Just the way it was for years and years.

But when it's just them, it feels like the air could shatter with one wrong word, like something reached into her lungs and just blocked off her air supply, urging her to get out of there as soon as possible. It was awkward and tense and every second she spent standing there with him, it feels like a second of her life is drained away. She needed to get out, to just… leave. People already do that, why can't she be the one doing it at least once - just this time.

But that's not her, that's not who Summer raised. So she held her head up, exhaled loudly and turned off the engine. She tugged off her gloves and held them in her hands, keeping busy with them as she reluctantly turned to her father. Seeing the hopeful but hurt look in his eyes, it made her lower her head with guilt and grit her teeth. She shouldn't feel guilty, it wasn't her fault. 

But she remembered what he said in the hospital and the guilt closed her throat, making it hard for her to breathe. But she tried anyway though.

_ Breathe in, breath out. _

"Sorry," she mumbled. "It's been a long day." She looked up at the stars, seeing how they just sat there, perfectly content in the sky. The smell of food on a braai hits her nose and her stomach rumbles in the silence. A car hooted in the distance. It was quiet around them, too quiet.

Taiyang crossed his arms across his chest and shifted his weight onto one foot, carefully asking, "Tough day at school?" 

Yang clenched her jaw as irritation flared up in her stomach before she looked at him. He physically cringed under her glare and she started tugging on her gloves again, quicker this time. "I can't do this."

"Hey, hey, hey, Yang, wait,  _ wait, _ " Taiyang urged, panic consuming his voice as his hand stopped hers from switching the engine on again. Her glare so sharp, he felt his throat tighten. "Look, I said I was sorry."

Tears of frustration started welling up in her eyes as she hit his hand off hers. Turning on her engine again, she scoffed just loud enough for her father to hear, "Yeah, I remember," before tugging her helmet on and zipping off down the busy road. 

It was so easy to just cover up your problems when you have a reason to, but give the right tools, and you can knock any wall down. 

* * *

  
  


Loud rattling and metal clanging against each other woke Yang from a fitful sleep, making her dart to the kitchen in just a shirt and underwear, ready to beat the living shit out of the intruder who decided to break into her apartment this early in the morning. Adrenaline pumping through her veins, Yang bolted around the last corner and had to stop herself from running right into the source of the noise. 

Holding a pan up in front of her for protection, Ruby squeaked in surprise and accidentally knocked over her crutches, making more clangs and crashes.

Yang pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled. She seemed to be doing that a lot these days. "Ruby, what are you doing?" She asked as her other hand gripped the counter.  _ It's too early for a headache. _

"Uh, I kinda, uh," Ruby stuttered and hopped on the spot, trying to find a comfortable position to rest her foot on the ground amongst the scattered pots and pans. "Breakfast?" she offered weakly, putting the pan down on the counter. 

Ruby gave a small sigh and Yang looked her over. The girl needed to sleep, there were dark rings under her eyes from countless restless nights, probably from the pain in her leg, shoulder and chest, and Yang felt her stomach twist. She hated seeing her sister hurt. 

"I just wanted to do something other than just lay in bed the whole time, and you have classes early so I thought that I could make you breakfast before you head out." Ruby shrugged and Yang felt like she could cry with the overwhelming emotions that had been built up, just waiting to spill. 

But they didn't, because Yang needed to be strong so that she could help Ruby get better. And Ruby won't get better unless she rests up and stops putting so much strain on her leg. "Once you're healed," as Ruby opened up her mouth to protest, Yang cut her off, bent down to pick up the crutches. "As in 'running around and jumping without hassle' kinda healed, then you can make me breakfast," she smirked down at Ruby, handing her the crutches and nudging a few pots and pans out of the way with her foot. "But right now, you are a hazard to yourself in the kitchen and might burn the place down."

Ruby grumbled but still made her way back to the bedroom.

Once Yang heard Ruby's door shut, she let out a sigh of relief. She loves her sister but Ruby needs to learn patience. Especially when it comes to her injuries. 

She held onto the counter with both hands, feeling the throb of her frequently visiting headache return. Deep breaths…

After taking a moment to ground herself again, she straightens up before starting breakfast. She's up already, might as well do something until it's time for her to get ready for class.

* * *

"Yang?"

Yang felt someone shake her shoulders but all she could do was groan in response.

"Wake up, Yang," the voice came again. "You're snoring and you're not exactly quiet."

_ Shake, shake.  _ "Whaaat?" 

"Get up now or I will pour water all over you."

Yang shot up in her chair, earning a few stares and giggles her way from her sudden movement. She looked around and saw that the slide on the projector was different, clearly she was asleep for a bit more than a few minutes.

She rubbed the tiredness from her eyes and picked up her pen, drowsily taking down the notes from the projector. She'll ask Weiss later for the notes that she missed.

Speaking of Weiss…

"What?" Yang whispered gruffly, feeling Weiss' stare burning a hole into the side of her head. 

Scoffing, Weiss took Yang's pen from her hand and put it on the other side of her book, away from Yang. She brushed off her glare and asked quietly, "Have you even slept?"

"Of course, I have," Yang reached for her pencil bag but Weiss took that away too. Huffing in annoyance, Yang turned to Weiss, growling under her breath. "I swear to the gods, Weiss, give me my stuff back."

Weiss didn't move. "Have you slept?"

"I just told you that I did." Yang leaned over and all but snatched her things from Weiss' side before taking notes again, almost digging holes into the page with her pen. 

Weiss didn't say anything and Yang didn't know why that bothered her so much. Her friend just continued to watch her.

"Oh my fu-"  _ Breathe in, breathe out. _ "What is it now?" 

A few seconds passed without any of them moving and finally Weiss sighed. "I'm worried."

"Why?"

"You look like shit and I am pretty sure that Ruby is also worried about you." 

Yang's jaw shifted before she looked down at her notes, pen dropping from her hand. Weiss saw her breathe deeply before covering her face with her hands. As soon as she saw Yang's shoulders shudder, Weiss grabbed everything on the table - her things and Yang's - and shoved everything into her bag. She scowled at the disorganized mess but she didn't care about that right now.

Yang felt a light slap on her shoulder and a soft demand telling her to get up and grab her notebook, finding that Weiss already took her bag before standing up from the table and making her way to the door.

Wiping the tears from her face and sniffing softly, Yang got up from the table and followed her friend out of the class.

* * *

"You're gonna run yourself into the fucking ground, you big oaf!" Weiss yelled as she whacked Yang with her own notebook, and sat down with a huff.

They were sitting in a café off campus, a place with delicious coffee and amazing cheese, tomato and onion sandwiches - the best, if Yang had any say. Usually Yang and Ruby would have scarfed the sandwich down as soon as the plate hit the tables, but the sandwich laid untouched, and Yang could see the worry in Weiss' eyes.

"So," Weiss started, earning Yang's gaze as she put Yang's notebook down, eyes still red from crying outside the café. "You gonna tell me what's been going on? You know, besides the whole accident thing, because that is quite obvious." 

Giving up, Yang pushed her sandwich out of the way and lowered her head to the table with a dull thud and groan. 

"Just father things, you know how it goes," Yang replied dismissively. 

Weiss's jaw clenched at the memory. Taiyang had said some hurtful things when Ruby landed up in hospital, it's no wonder that Yang is stressing over it. Weiss was in the room with Ruby when Yang and her father were arguing in the hallway. She heard snipbits from Yang when she yelled in response, probably waking up a few people in the adjacent rooms. It was a stressful night for everyone.

Weiss watched as Yang brought her arms up from under her table, folded them and tucked her head into the crook of her elbow, seemingly almost trying to hide from the world.

"Yang," Weiss said softly, agitation from earlier leaving her body. The blonde didn't respond so Weiss reached out and slipped her hand between the fingers pulled tightly into a fist. 

When Yang lifted her head enough to show her eyes, almost a misty blue-grey colour, Weiss saw tears start to well up and a small sniff was heard. 

Weiss's heart clenched at that moment, the pain in her chest spreading at the hurt of a father's word that lingered a bit too long. A pain she was all too familiar with. A pain she wasn't familiar with seeing on Yang. 

"It's not your fault," Weiss started off softly, squeezing Yang's hand just a bit. "It was the driver's fault for skipping that red robot. Whatever your father said, it's not true. And I need you to believe that it isn't true." Yang just stared at her, unmoving. So Weiss carried on, "You were the first one there, you called the ambulance, you got Ruby to the hospital. You've been looking after her from day one. You got a job, got into college, do all your extra activities and still make all the time in the world for your sister. She doesn't blame you for any of it."

"But-"

"But nothing," Weiss cut her off, knowing full well that Yang was going to downplay whatever she just said. Like it was easy, small, simple things. All that she did for her sister, she had given up a great deal. 

Yang hadn't finished high school, she dropped out to start working so that she could save up enough for the time Ruby left high school, a choice that Taiyang had greatly discouraged. 

Weiss had taken off two years to sort out the family business and tie up loose ends before returning to Vale to start on her studies. 

Once Ruby was accepted into a college, only then was Weiss able to convince Yang to join. Yang used the excuse that she had to pay for Ruby's tuition so she couldn't attend college yet. So Weiss offered to give her a full scholarship under the Schnees, only condition was for Yang to do her best.

So they all attended their first year at the same time, Weiss and Yang on the same campus and Ruby in a campus a few blocks down.

"You've given up a lot in order to give Ruby the best life you could possibly give her," Weiss almost whispers, hoping the weight behind her words could flow to Yang's ears. "You are so strong, Yang. You keep doing what you need to do, don't let whoever else's opinions affect you. Both Ruby and I are here for you because we know you will always have our backs. So lean on us if you don't feel that strong on that particular day, like today. We don't want you to exhaust yourself. Sure, Ruby got hurt, but she doesn't blame you at all. She'll be running around and climbing the counters to get to the cookie jar in no time, I promise you." 

Weiss gave Yang a soft smile at the small giggle that left Yang's lips at the last part, and as it soon turned into strangled sobs, Weiss shifted her chair over to the side of Yang and rubbed her back soothingly.

"Let it all out," Weiss muttered as Yang sat up and hugged Weiss closely to her, tucking her head into the crook of Weiss's neck as sobs racked the blonde's body. "It's okay to not be okay sometimes, Yang. Just let us know and we can take the reigns until you're ready again."

As Yang's sobs echoed through the empty café, Weiss made eye contact with the waitress and pointed at her espresso before lifting her hand with two fingers extended, she mouthed, "Two espressos." Heavens knew that they would need all the caffeine they could get right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure when I can update this, but I will be working on it every now and then. The summary is prone to change as time goes on because I have no outline and am in for the ride just as much as you are.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. Constructive criticism is appreciated greatly! I'm always looking to improve skills. Anyways, enjoy your day/evening!


	2. Chapter 2

"Why not?"

"Because I said so, Ruby."

"Weiss-"

"Yang, come on…"

Yang took a deep breath as she looked between the two, Weiss giving her an exasperated look and Ruby giving her best pleading eyes. She glanced at Weiss again, silently asking for Weiss to be on her side just this once. But Weiss's level stare made Yang realise that she was alone against them. 

With a heavy sigh, Yang turned around and continued to stuff her equipment into her bag. "Fine," the blonde huffed, earning an accomplished squeal from her sister. Yang took the water bottle that Weiss was holding out to her and stuffed it in her bag before turning to her sister again. "But I don't want to see you out of your seat unless it's absolutely necessary," Yang warned, pointing a finger at her sister. "If I let you come, it has to be with that one condition, okay?" Her voice shook with worry because she really didn't want her sister to come with. She knew that as soon as her back was turned, Ruby would try her best to get closer to the fights, as she usually did.

Ruby eagerly nodded and turned to Weiss, holding up her hand in the air for a high five and Weiss returned it with a roll of her eyes. "I'll make sure to keep an eye on her, don't worry," Weiss told her, probably sensing what Yang is stressed about. "Besides, I need someone to explain to me everything that's going on there."

Grabbing the towel that was laying on the counter, Yang softly swung it at Ruby before turning and stuffing it into her bag as well, "Go get ready. I'm gonna take a shower. Weiss…" she looked over at her friend who still gave her that level stare. Yang was at a loss for words. What did Weiss do while she waited for them? "You…" Yang started hesitantly. "Do… what you usually do."

Weiss scoffed with a roll of her eyes again. "Right," she muttered quietly before leaving the kitchen. 

Grabbing her bag off the counter, Yang walked past Ruby while insisting that she should go get ready. "If I am done before you, you can forget coming."

Yang could hear Ruby groan and the soft _tik tik tik_ sound of the crutches behind her, "Alright, _alright!_ "

* * *

After Yang weighed in, Ruby found a spot for them to sit and Weiss got food from the tuckshop in the next room, they all sat on the lower parts of the bleachers as they watched the rest of the clubs bustle around the floor, warming up and talking to each other. They were all waiting for the registration part of trials to finish before they got to the first age group.

Yang looked at the digits marked onto her skin with a koki, showing her weight. She frowned at the number, _she had lost weight_. She is now in a division lower than her usual weight group, which, on the bright side, she might be able to get an opponent now.

She looked up again and took a bite of her sandwich. There were six mats in total, two rows of three. With so many mats, Yang hoped that today would go quick enough, not like the previous tournament where they only finished the juniors after three o'clock. 

But knowing Ironwood, they will start late and leave late like usual. 

"So many people turned up today," Nora mentioned while sipping on her coffee. Yang felt sorry for whoever went up against Nora as she worriedly watched the ginger head down half the cup with a satisfied grin. 

"Is that the new club?" Weiss had leaned over to Yang, making sure that she could be heard over the people on the bleachers. Yang tried to follow her gaze but couldn't see exactly where her friend was looking. "By the door, they just arrived."

Yang's eyes traveled to the door on the far left leading outside. The group of people that walked in was fairly small, less than a dozen of them. They all had pure black uniforms with red trimmings down the side of their pants that, when Yang squinted a bit harder, spelt out 'White Fang'. Nice name, Yang thought to herself. Then when one of them turned around, she saw an emblem of a rose on the back of their shirts, red petals and a white stem.

Yang turned her head a bit to speak into Weiss's ear. "Seems like it. Although they don't look that many."

"Well, same could be said for you guys," Weiss remarked, looking between Yang and Nora. "Not a big club either."

Nora must have heard Weiss because she bounced up and brought her hands up to her face, lightly throwing jabs in the air just in front of Weiss's face. "Hey, I can't take on ten of them on at once!"

With that ever unamused stare coming from Weiss, Yang chuckled and laid her hand on Ruby's shoulder, gaining her sister's attention. "You doing okay, kid?"

Ruby nodded, eyes excitedly scanning the area. "Did you see the new club?"

"Yeah," Yang's smile grew a bit more. Seeing Ruby happy was a different kind of euphoria that Yang cannot exactly explain. Not once had Ruby ever complained about anything that Yang did for them, she stuck by Yang through it all. She had Yang's back. She didn't blame Yang for anything, especially when that car hit her. She didn't blame Yang at all. 

And that thought alone made her chest tighten with guilt. She blamed herself so much, she had so many sleepless nights and skipped meals because of what happened. She looked down at Ruby's crutches resting by her foot that's set in a cast. The doctor said that Ruby probably won't be able to fight anymore. 

Yang's throat constricted and she tried to breath, she really did but the air seemed to be wrestling with her lungs. 

"Yang?"

Yang blinked. "Yeah, sorry. What?"

Ruby tilted her head curiously, obviously seeing that Yang was troubled. 

Yang just gave her a smile, ' _Everything's fine,'_ she ruffled Ruby's hair a bit. ' _Don't worry'_ she tried to get across to her sister. 

Ruby squinted her eyes before turning to watch the instructors gather in the centre of the floor. Once she spotted Taiyang, Yang saw Ruby wave vigorously, earning a salute in return from their father. Yang looked away.

* * *

"Yang Xiao Long?" One of the referees called from the middle of the mat, looking around at all the students competing in Yang's weight group.

She raised her hand and called, "Here!" to show her presence as the referee marked her off the list before he turned, calling more names out.

"You've got this," Taiyang commented as Yang started bouncing on her feet, keeping herself warmed up for her fight. She glanced towards where her sister sat in the bleachers, talking Weiss' ear off about the trials. Yang saw Ruby point in a few directions around the room and smiled to herself, Weiss was probably going to suffer but at least she won't get bored.

She looked back at the rest of the women standing around the mat. Most she had already fought against sometime or another over the years but there was one who didn't look familiar. She came from the new club and she didn't have a sensei with her. Yang's head cocked to the side a bit, usually fighters were accompanied by their sensei or trainer but Yang noticed that she was alone. Maybe they were busy with their other fighters.

"So, remember," Taiyang started as he held up the focus pads and Yang immediately hopped into fighting stance, hands up and on her toes. "Keep your hands up, shoulders and elbows in, light on your feet and keep-"

"Keep control of the centre," Yang completed with a combination of punches to the focus pads, leaning out of the way when she saw them arc in the familiar pattern towards her head. "I got it."

They went through a few more combinations before the referee called attention to the fighters standing around. Once they all gathered on the mat, the referee spoke up.

"Alright, you girls know the rules by now. Same standard rules as what we use in the normal tournaments. No excessive force; three warnings before we ask you to leave the mat; no holding and no leaving the mat," he announced just loud enough for Yang's group to hear. "We will be starting with semi-contact and we'll move on to light-contact afterwards so if you've registered for both, stay. If not, you can leave after your fights."

With a "Hai, Sensei!" from the group, they all left the mat and waited for the referee to call the first two fighters. 

A few rounds of watching and observing, Yang felt that she was again going to be at a disadvantage. They were all quicker with their attacks, lighter on their feet, their movements almost effortless. 

Yang's club was probably the only one that focused on full contact, her father believed that you need to learn how to take a punch rather than play around in a fight with flimsy jabs and fancy kicks that they usually do in semi- and light-contact, which was commonly called points and continuous.

Her club doesn't learn how to 'make the first punch', they learnt how to 'get the first point', being taught to block, parry or dodge and attack when there was an opening. The nickname 'hooligans' was often thrown their way due to this because to the untrained eye, it looked as if they were just fighting to overpower their opponents.

Yang, now fully geared up, bounced on her toes, waiting for the round to end as she scanned the rest of the fighters. She was one of the last ones to fight in points, a few of the others packing up or already left. 

"Yang," her father called, walking up from the opposite end of the room. "Nora will be fighting now so I'll be in her corner…" Yang already looked away, focusing on the fight in front of her. "I don't want to not be there in case she gets disqualified again. I can trust you to be on your own, right?"

He was hesitant, almost as if he was waiting for her to reassure him that she'll be fine, with a dazzling smile and a thumbs up - like old times. 

Instead she continued to hop from one foot to another, keeping her muscles warm. Her body already started to warm with irritation. _Can't he just go already?_ She bit harder into her gum guard and stopped hopping, shaking out her legs and arms instead.

He left without another word and Yang blew out a breath through her nose, feeling the tension leave her body.

"Yang Xiao Long: Blue! Ilia Amitola: Red!"

She glanced at Ruby again, smiling when she got an enthusiastic thumbs up in return.

Yang walked onto the blue square in the mat and waited for the referee to tie the ribbon to her headgear, then waited as he did the same with the red ribbon to her opponent's headgear. Yang took a good look at the girl. She was from White Fang, small, probably quick. Yang didn't want to assume too much because that got her in a lot of trouble in the past.

The referee stood in the middle, ushering them closer so he could go over the last set of rules like he did with the rest of the fights. "Okay, ladies. Nice and clean. It's semi-contact right now, so when I say stop, you stop. I don't want to see any punch thrown afterwards. No excessive force, no turning your back during the fight. Got it?"

Yang gave off a soft, "Hai," while Ilia just nodded before she turned to go back to her square, leaving Yang's hand hanging in greeting. The referee just shrugged and Yang returned to her square as well, bowing to the judges at the head of the mat before turning her body to the middle, her arms covering her body. 

"Hajime!"

_Slap!_

Yang's eyes were brought to the floor where the noise came from. At first she was confused but then realised that Ilia had slapped her foot against the mat to gain her attention elsewhere. Yang drew her attention back up to Ilia's face just in time to see her jab. Twisting her arm just a little bit, Yang managed to parry her punch away before moving in to strike, only to see Ilia hop away out of reach.

"Stop!"

Yang turned towards the referee and moved back to her square on the mat, now realising that Ilia moved so far away from her, she moved right off the mat.

"Keep on the mat, ladies," the referee muttered just loud enough for them to hear and threw his hand down in front of them. "Hajime!"

They went on like that for however long the judges saw fit. It must have been Ilia's first fight because she kept running away whenever Yang advanced. Always turning her back and backing up enough to have one foot off the mat. 

Yang also noticed that when Ilia wanted to attack, she slapped her foot against the mat, effectively gaining Yang's attention the first few times. She had landed a few kicks in but mostly Yang felt that the fight could have been better if Ilia had a bit more confidence in her style.

After the fight, Yang reached out her glove and Ilia looked at it strangely - definitely her first fight, Yang concluded. "It's a greeting," Yang said around her mouth guard. "It's to say thanks for the fight."

Yang saw the hesitation as Ilia reached out and touched her glove to Yang's, immediately looking up at her for approval. Yang chuckled and thanked her for the fight before turning towards the table of judges, she saw Ilia awkwardly do the same from the corner of her eye. 

She started removing her gloves and headgear when the referee came back to tell them that the team would be posted in a few weeks and that they should keep an eye out for it. He also told Yang that there was no continuous fight because the rest of her division all signed up for points. Well, that really was a shame. Since she was the only one to sign up for continuous, that automatically put her in the team.

They bowed in greeting and departed ways.

"Yang!" 

Yang had just sat down next to her bag when she heard Taiyang calling from somewhere behind her. She twisted her torso to look at him and saw he was running towards her, a grin set easy on his face.

"You might have another fight," he said when he got close enough and she groaned. Ilia wasn't experienced but she did manage to tired Yang out. "They couldn't find an opponent for this one full contact fight so they asked if you wanted to try it. She's a bit lighter than you, white belt, but said she didn't mind fighting anyone. You up for it?"

Yang looked him over once before continuing to pack her things into her bag.

She knew the struggles of not finding fights because of the weight category you're in, sometimes you're unlucky, sometimes luck seems to be on your side for the day and graces you with one fight at least. She also didn't get that continuous fight she signed up for. 

But she hadn't done full contact in years. The last time was in her early teens and she was beat into a pulp because she had to fight an older girl with the same weight as her. She would like to see if she's gotten better, and points and continuous doesn't really show her skills that much.

"Fine," Yang muttered, zipping up her bag and taking a sip of her water. "I'll do it."

Taiyang gave a sound of triumph and clapped a hand on her shoulder, retracting his hand when she tensed under his grip. 

She heard him mutter an apology before she got up and started walking in the direction of the full contact mat in the corner. She went to the judges to ask when her weight division would come up and made her way back to Ruby and Weiss when she found that she could relax for a few rounds before she had to fight.

"Someone's rusty," Ruby snickered when Yang arrived at their part of the bleachers. 

Yang threw her bag at her sister and playfully snapped at her, "Can it! I didn't ask for your opinion," which only seemed to make her sister giggle harder.

When she sat down and gratefully accepted the sandwich that Weiss was offering, she noticed her friend questioningly glanced at her shin pads and boots still attached to her legs. "Another fight?"

Yang hummed in agreement before swallowing, "Maybe an hour to hour and a half from now. Full contact."

Ruby scoffed and nudged Yang's thigh with her elbow, "Should I call the ambulance and tell them to get ready?"

Yang slowly turned her head in Ruby's direction and narrowed her eyes at the innocent grin on the girl's face. Yang's number one supporter was also her number one bane of existence. Yang knew that Ruby would be behind her 100% but that didn't mean she wouldn't throw jabs at Yang's pride every chance she got. 

Yang gave Ruby a tight smile before reaching out and pinching her sister's shoulder, "You little shit."

Ruby giggled and gave a few cries of pain before Yang felt that it was sufficient enough punishment and leaned back to finish off her sandwich.

* * *

Yang cringed as she saw one of the men get knocked silly because he didn't hold his hands up. "That's gotta hurt," she mumbled, opening a fold-up chair that she stole from one of the judges' tables and helped lower Ruby into it.

"You sure you want to do this?" Weiss asked, concern making her voice wobble. Yang looked up at her and saw that she was watching the fight, her jaw clenching each time Yang heard one of the men land a hit. 

Weiss never liked coming to these competitions, she had only come to a few because Yang dragged her to watch them fight. But this time, she came to keep Ruby company while Yang fought and Yang would forever be grateful for her friend. 

Yang nudged Weiss' arm. "Hey, you don't think I can kick butt?" She grinned when Weiss looked her way. She gave Yang an eyeroll before glancing at the mat, the referee finally stopping the fight. "I'll be fine," Yang smiled, hoping to soothe some of the worry displayed on Weiss' face. "Besides, girls don't hit nearly as hard as the men do."

Yang lied but she hoped that Weiss didn't pick up on it. Women can hit hard, just as hard as the men can. It just depends from fighter to fighter. But Weiss didn't need to know that. One of the men took his gumguard out, trailing a long, goopy line of his spit that still attached to his lip and Yang chuckled when she saw Weiss curl her lips in disgust. 

When the referee called for the women in Yang's division to start getting warmed up, Yang heard the distinct sound of Nora's cackling not far off. She turned to see Nora walking up to them, towel around her neck, bag slung over her shoulder and a huge grin plastered on her face, eyes crackled with excitement.

"A little birdy told me that you're doing full contact again," Nora announced, taking a swig of her water. She didn't have any of her gear on so Yang suspected that Nora is finally finished with her fights. Yang wondered if she was disqualified again. With a second glance, Yang saw that Nora's lip was split. Must have been one hell of a fight if her opponent got her hard enough to leave any mark.

"Yeah, they needed an opponent, so why not? More practice for me, y'know?" Yang shrugged like it was no big deal, but in all honesty, Yang was really nervous. Her last full contact fight didn't leave anything to be desired and each time she thought of it, she could feel her heart start to race. And she didn't like it. 

Squatting down next to Ruby, who slightly shifted in Yang's direction, Yang placed her elbows on her knees and laced her hands together before she muttered softly to her sister, "You doing okay?" She looked at her sister, trying to spot any tell that Ruby has to show she was lying. 

Ruby's eyes stayed glued to the two men fighting in front of them as she answered distractedly, "Huh? What- Oh yeah, I'm fine. My leg is just throbbing, but that's all." Yang could see the gears shifting in her sister's mind as she observed every attack thrown on the mat, but she didn't see anything that would tell her that Ruby was lying.

If Ruby said that she was fine, all that Yang could do was believe her. "Okay," Yang says finally, turning her head to focus on the fight. "Don't forget to take your medicine in a couple minutes. I don't know how long they will keep me on the mat."

A few seconds later, the referee called time on the fight, did his little referee thing and sent the fighters off. Yang watched him go to the judges' table and retrieve the paper that no doubt had the next round's names on. 

She slowly dragged her equipment out of her bag and put her headgear and gloves on, the container that held her gumguard was passed on to her sister, who would give it to Yang once her fight started.

Yang stood up as soon as the referee shouted her name, her muscles shaking with adrenaline, "Yang Xiao Long: red! Blake Belladonna: blue!"

She raised her glove in acknowledgement and scanned the rest of the crowd that gathered, hoping to see her opponent do the same.

Blake Belladonna? The name didn't sound familiar so she looked for an unfamiliar face. There were a lot of people who were standing around the mat, eagerly waiting for the fight. A lot of faces she didn't know. Full contact always drew a crowd compared to the other categories. 

She looked towards the corner besides the judges' table and noticed that the new club had gathered there. She saw Ilia sanding with them, her blue eyes wide as she looked at the people around her.

She turned to Ruby, who already had Yang's gumguard in her hand, and thanked her for putting it in her mouth. She saw Ruby laugh when Weiss muttered a low, "Ugh, that's so disgusting," before heading out to the mat. 

The referee put the ribbon in her headgear and she started to hop on her toes, trying to settle her nerves as she looked around. Her opponent still hadn't come forth and Yang didn't know what to do with herself.

The referee looked at the paper again and announced, "Blake Belladonna: blue!"

The White Fang parted a bit to let a woman step through. Yang noticed that she was still putting on her gloves and was turned towards her club where a taller man with black hair dyed red was mouthing to her something that Yang couldn't understand. Once they came to an agreement, she turned and looked up at Yang, studying her face before giving a tight smile.

Yang grinned and held out her glove, waiting for Blake to greet her back. When the woman did, she leaned in a bit closer and lightly said, "Don't go easy on me."

The woman quirked an eyebrow before she smirked, replying, "But I'd hate to mess up a pretty face."

There was that glint in her eye that made Yang stop and grin. She blinked and Blake was already moving back to her square, bowing to the judges. Yang realised that she was still taken off guard and practically scrambled to bow to the judges and hop into fighting stance.

The moment the referee threw his hand down and shouted, "Hajime!" Yang knew that those golden eyes presented more than just a challenge. She felt her excitement take over as soon as the woman lifted her leg effortlessly and brought it down, bringing Yang's gloves with it, leaving Yang open. The nervousness now gone as she moved back out of the way, giggling as the adrenaline started to pump through her. 

They circled the center, taunting each other to take it if they dared with smirks and raised eyebrows. _Control the center,_ Yang heard Taiyang's voice at the back of her head, urging her to take control of the fight. But as the fight went on, as her opponent slipped out of her reach more often than not, as she landed a few well-timed attacks in, Yang felt that she didn't actually want to control the center. She wanted to see where this went. 

And by the looks of that familiar glint appearing in her opponent's glowing amber eyes every time she landed a hit, so did Blake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty then, I hope you guys enjoyed a little glimpse into how trials usually works from where I am from. It's not a super formal tournament so that is why there usually so little people from the different clubs. Also a lil side-note, you can do points and continuous but you can only do Full-contact as a singular item - You cannot do full-contact with points or continuous but for a case like Blake's, senseis can take a suitable fighter from other categories in a similar weight division to give the person who doesn't have an opponent a fair chance to get into the provincial teams. I hope that clears up a bit of confusion for you.
> 
> I hope you enjoy your day/evening!


	3. Chapter 3

Control the centre, that's what she had always been taught. It was like second nature to her: attack, move in and hold - It had worked so far but Yang couldn't even achieve the first thing. Blake just kept moving out of the way, watching each of her attacks as they came and then after the first few were thrown, Yang realised that she couldn't go on with her usual strategy. Blake only attacked a few times. Each just as calculated as the rest.

The glint in her opponent's eyes seemed to have fizzled out, and Yang was a bit startled. The excitement that accompanied the little banter before the fight started to drain as Yang realised that Blake became bored. She basically knew Yang's every move even before she knew them herself.

She stopped, resting on the balls of her toes and Blake stopped too, tilting her head to the side as she bobbed from foot to foot. None of them moved and that smirk was back on Blake's features within a few seconds, a taunt to see what Yang's next move was.

Yang took a step forward, spun on her toes and brought her other leg around. She turned her head enough to see how high she needed to get her leg, and once she deemed it high enough, she straightened her back and brought her leg down in a spinning axe kick - one of the few moves that were illegal in points and continuous. 

And man, it felt good to use these kinds of attacks freely.

Blake moved swiftly out to the side, eyes dancing with excitement as she watched Yang's foot fly past her face and hit the mat with a  _ smack _ . In that brief pause of them being that close together, Blake quirked an eyebrow before commenting, "And here I thought it would be another boring fight."

Yang lifted onto the balls of her foot that had just landed, brought her other knee up and spun on her bottom foot. Blake blocked the kick and had to take a few steps to the side due to the force behind Yang's round house. "Nothing about me is boring," with that quip, Yang reset herself and sent Blake a wink, feeling her confidence start to build again.

Blake looked her over, that smirk reappearing again before she lowered her arms, hopping from foot to foot, her own confidence oozing off the black haired lady.

Yang watched Blake settle back down again, her shoulders moving like a panther's that is ready to pounce on her prey as her hands move up to cover her body. And with that, Blake stepped forward as she threw a jab just next to Yang's head, making Yang block for the false punch, leaving her short-rib open. 

Yang saw Blake's body lower and twist and the next second, her breath was knocked out of her. Hopping out of Blake's reach, Yang caught her breath as she watched Blake sashay across the mat before her. 

"Don't tell me you're already tired. I was just starting to have fun," Blake moved her shoulders again. Yang had never seen anyone move so fluently in their fights. Every movement flowed into the next and Yang felt intrigued.

"Come on, Yang! Kick her butt!"

Yang wasn't surprised to hear her sister cheer for her and that put a smile on her face. She could do this. There were a few other cheers from other people, but she couldn't hear the rest. Her focus was on the woman in front of her, on that promise of a challenge in her bright amber eyes. 

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she felt the excitement flow through her veins again. She moved closer and so did Blake, each coming to the centre. Yang threw a jab to her face to draw her attention there and brought her leg up to kick her in the side. 

Blake deflected her attacks and lifted her knee up between them, she extended her leg and Yang felt herself being pushed away a few steps. In the next moment, Blake was on her, throwing punch after punch, each one more sharper than the last and before long, Yang felt herself keeping her hands up, waiting for Blake to finish her rushed attacks. 

On the last, Blake moved a bit back, did a reverse crescent kick to knock Yang's gloves out of the way as she did at the beginning of the fight and hopped onto that foot so that she could bring the other leg up effortlessly in a roundhouse kick to Yang's jaw. 

Yang stumbled a bit to the side and brought her hands up in case Blake followed through, but Blake didn't. She hopped again from one foot to the other, arms at her sides, waiting for Yang to continue. 

Yang's ears were ringing, she felt her head pound because of the kick, but she shook it off and focused on Blake again, her eyes, her posture, her movements. 

Blake's eyes were bright, curious, Yang could swear that excitement ran through them at full force, because she was studying Yang and smiled when Yang started walking to her. Blake brought her hands up again and met Yang halfway. Neither of them fought for the centre, Yang realised. Blake attacked more than Yang had but she also backed off when she overwhelmed Yang. Blake didn't want the centre, and Yang wasn't fighting hard enough to get it. Yang wanted to say that it was because full contact was completely different to points and continuous, but Yang knew that wasn't it.

Blake smirked and Yang saw her eyes dart to her abdomen before Blake bent down to give Yang an uppercut to the place she was looking at. Yang blocked but this time she kept her eyes on Blake's, not on her movements and Yang noticed that Blake looked to where she was gonna attack next.

So Yang started blocking in each of those places before Blake could even land a hit. A few seconds in and Yang saw Blake shift her foot over to place it in front of the other one. She saw the spin and stepped in before Blake made it fully around, the back of her thigh bouncing off Yang's waist, taking her off guard and sending her backwards. 

This was the opportunity that Yang was looking for, she stepped closer and immediately started to rush Blake into the corner. They were exchanging punches for a few seconds before Blake kicked her away again, both breathing heavily but both were grinning. 

Yang found it easy to read Blake after that, following her eyes to predict where Blake was going next. After a while, the ref stopped them and brought them to the centre before he headed to the judges table. A second later, he dismissed them and Yang walked over to Blake and threw her arm around Blake in her usual thanking manner when she enjoyed her fight. "Thanks for the excellent fight," she said into the woman's ear.

But instead of the usual response of her opponent hugging her back, Blake stiffened up and froze in place until Yang pulled back and saw her expression and immediately started apologising while she threw off her gloves and tugged her headgear off. "Shit, I am so sorry. I should have asked first if I could hug you- uhm…" trailing off awkwardly, Yang held her hand out and gave Blake her most regretful expression. She didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable so she tried to make up for it by giving her a small smile, "Thank you for the fight, it was really fun."

Yang watched Blake's shoulders continue to tense up and she looked behind her, the confidence from the fight long gone. Yang looked over Blake's shoulders to see where she was looking and saw nothing out of the ordinary, until Ilia turned her head towards their trainer with a worried expression. 

The trainer was silently glaring at Blake, chin turned up as if he was looking down on her from way over there. Yang quickly decided that he was not a good person. Blake had fought excellently, way better than most people she had already seen fight, it made Yang's stomach twist at his reaction to his student.

He shook his head once in Blake's direction, as if to say that she doesn't have his permission to shake Yang's hand. 

_ What the hell?  _ Yang thought, it's just a freaking handshake, no-one needs permission from someone else to do something like that. It's a different story if the person, themself, doesn't want to shake hands, but this just made her grit her teeth at the White Fang's trainer. 

Yang looked back at Blake, who was now staring at her, eyes roaming her face closely as if she was looking for something. Next thing Yang sees is the woman in front of her taking off one of her gloves and hesitantly taking Yang's hand and shaking it slowly before giving Yang a small smile, her black gum guard peeking through her lips. "Thank you for the opportunity to fight. You weren't boring - most of the time," she said with a smirk on her lips but her eyes didn't have that amusement from the fight, they had fear in them instead, as if she was begging for Yang to not make a big scene of it, as if she knew what Yang had scene.

Sighing internally, Yang knew she couldn't do anything about it so she played along, giving a chuckle. "Hey, I was just warming up. You know, to give you a chance to land a few before things got too serious." She winked, hoping to show the woman that she understands. She let her hand go, picked up her equipment laying on the floor and started walking backwards with an easy grin on her face, "Catch you around then. Good luck with the results, I really do hope you get picked. You kick some major ass." 

Sending one last glance to the trainer before waving to Blake, Yang turned and almost stumbled backwards as she tried to catch her sister, who thought it was a good idea to jump at her while injured. "Oh my god, she whooped your ass!" Ruby yelled while laughing. Yang sent a glare her way before she bent down to collect Ruby's crutches laying on the floor while she still held one of her sister's hands to help her balance with her one foot.

"You should be lucky I don't whoop your butt," Yang playfully scowled. "Is it too much to ask for even a little support from you?"

"I did support you though: during the fight!" Ruby grinned at Yang before adding, "For like, four seconds. You should have heard me, I was louder than all the rest. If you didn't hear me, then I'll be so disappointed. All that energy, wasted."

Yang rolled her eyes and gave Ruby her crutches with an amused smile. "Yeah, whatever, you dork." She turned to Weiss and Nora and smiled, "You guys ready to go?" Yang didn't want to admit it but the adrenaline was starting to wear off and parts of her body were already starting to protest against some movements. Her jaw in particular. A nice warm shower would be great as soon as she got home, she knew that she would feel it in the morning.

"Already? That's it? What about the results? Who won?" Weiss asked, confusion laced in her voice.

Ruby giggled before gently replying, "Remember, there's no score at trials, only assessments to see if you can handle fighting against the other provinces. They choose the best out of each weight group and we don't get to see the results until they email it to all the senseis, but I'll let you know when we get them." 

"Yeah," Yang confirmed after Ruby was done and started walking towards her bag before grinning at Weiss's confused expression. "Don't worry, it's not complicated at all. Trials is to see if you made Team A or B, or if you didn't make the team at all." She sat down and started packing her equipment away. "Oh, Nora?" Yang called, earning the ginger head's attention. "How did your fight go?"

Nora grit her teeth and growled. "Somehow I got Emerald, and I'm pretty sure she bribed the ref or something!" She screeched, throwing a hand in the air in the vague direction of the mat she fought on. "She was throwing illegal shots and running out whenever I went for her and somehow I got two warnings! Two! For fuck-knows-what!" She pointed at Yang, eyebrows furrowed, "I was good this time, I promise."

Yang chuckled. Emerald tended to do that often, how she still gets away with it, Yang would never know. Complaints were reported but nothing was done. "Well, if she did bribe the ref, you'd better hope she didn't bribe the judges too, or else you can say 'Bye-bye' to your spot on Team A."

Nora huffed before turning her attention to Ruby, who was adjusting the height of her crutches so that one is way longer than the other. "When's your next appointment, Ruby? Do you still need a lift?"

Ruby shot up with a surprised 'Hm?' and she blinked before answering. "Tuesday but Weiss said that she would take me since she doesn't have classes in the afternoon."

Nora nodded and once Yang finished packing, they made their way home.

* * *

"Man, what a day," Yang muttered as she slumped into the couch. 

Weiss was sitting on the other couch with her laptop on her lap, coffee on the table in front of her. "How was work?" she asked, reaching over and grabbing her coffee, taking a sip before placing it back down. She was probably making notes from today's classes.

Yang groaned without taking her head off the back of the couch and Weiss chuckled. Instead of answering the question, Yang asked one of her own, "Why don't you just move in? You're here all the time anyway. I'll clean out our extra room and you can have it." Yang snorted, "Or you can share a room with Ruby and fulfil her 'BFF Bucketlist'."

Yang twisted her head a bit to watch Weiss give her a look, but Weiss kept quiet as if she was considering it. Weiss and Ruby got off on a really bad start but as time went on, they became attached by the hips. Yang figured that it was because Ruby offered unconditional attention that Weiss often never had growing up and Weiss gave some kind of order to Ruby's chaotic lifestyle. Sure, Weiss and Yang were friends too but Weiss and Ruby were like, platonic soulmates or something. Ruby explained it to Yang at some stage but she was too tired to think too hard at the moment.

"Would you let me pay the rent?" Weiss finally voiced. Yang looked up in surprise. She was actually considering moving in. 

But Yang also knew what Weiss was getting at. "Not the whole rent, Weiss. Just like, one third of it, your share."

Weiss squinted at Yang. "Half."

"One third."

"One third and I take care of groceries, that's my final offer," Weiss stated, stubbornness flittering across her features. 

Yang tilted her head, Weiss does like her high quality foods so that would be nice. But she must be desperate to move out from her sister because Weiss actually was willing to pay only one third of the rent to appease Yang.

"Deal," Yang sighed as her head dropped onto the back of the couch again. “How was class today?” When she received a grunt for an answer, she chuckled.

"Have you eaten yet?" Weiss asked and Yang heard her typing on her laptop again. 

"Not yet. Is Ruby asleep?"

"Yup, her leg started paining again so she took painkillers and it knocked her out within ten minutes," Weiss said and typed for a few more seconds before getting up and making her way to the kitchen.

Sounds about right. Whatever medicine Ruby takes, it makes her fall asleep not long after. Her mom used to say that it's because Ruby never really got sick so her body isn't used to it. 

Yang got up when she heard Weiss put on the microwave and went to the kitchen. "Please tell me that you didn't cook, I don't want to get food poisoning," she joked.

Weiss leveled her with a look. "I ordered Italian. Got you some pasta but I didn't know when you'd be home so I put it in the fridge."

Yang's stomach twisted at the thought of food but she knew that she didn't eat at all that day and Weiss would have her head if she skipped dinner as well. That chat from the coffee shop coming to the front of her mind made her feel guilty for worrying her friend that much.

She sighed, Weiss couldn't complain if she had a little bit of food. She glanced at Ruby's door. "I'll be right back."

Opening the door, Yang was immediately hit with the smell of muscle cream and made her way around Weiss's makeshift bed on the floor to open Ruby's window. Mosquitoes be damned, Yang wasn't gonna let Ruby suffocate in her room. 

She looked over at her sister, face tucked into her mountain of pillows and sheet halfway thrown off her body, leaving her leg sticking out with Zwei’s snout pressed up against her foot as if he was trying to comfort her. Yang looked over the scar that ran up the side of her leg, evidence of the surgery that took place after the accident. Yang's throat closed up and tears entered her eyes. Guilt was a nasty thing.

She took a breath and pulled the sheet over her sister carefully, shielding her from any mosquito attacks during the night before she left a kiss on the side of Ruby's head and left the room.

"Do you want coffee too?" Weiss asked as soon as Yang entered the kitchen. 

"Nah," she went over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water, hoping to wash the tightness in her throat down. "It's too hot for coffee."

"It cools you down quicker when you drink something hot in summer," Weiss said, studying her.

Yang took a few sips of water before pointing the bottle in her friend's direction, "Yeah, after it boils you from the inside out. Thanks but I'll stick to my cold water."

Weiss shrugged once she saw what she was looking for and handed Yang her food before giving Yang a look, "Eat, even if it is a little bit." She gave Yang a kiss on the cheek before making her way to Ruby's room. "Goodnight, Yang. Don't stay up too late," Weiss said and closed the door.

Yang took the food and water and went to her room. After placing her food and water on her bedside table, Yang grabbed her school bag, threw it in her bed and started doing schoolwork until the early hours of the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day/night!


	4. Chapter 4

Yang felt that most days went by with her being in a state of mind where she didn't really know what's going on but her body still continues as if her brain is still in control - she called it her 'autopilot' mode.

For probably the last twenty minutes, she had been looking at the products on the shelves, hands automatically reaching out and pulling them down to get a 'better look' at them, but her brain didn't really register what she was holding in her hand so she put them back after a few seconds. She moved a bit forward and repeated the process again, earning a sigh from her right.

"If you want them, put them in the trolley," Weiss stated before placing a box of salted crackers into the trolley and crossing it off on the list in her hand. "That's probably the sixth thing you've picked up, only to put it back. Just take it."

Yang hummed in response and put the box back on the shelf before moving forward again, earning an annoyed click of her tongue from Weiss.

"Weiss! Check this out! Have you had peanut puffs before?" Ruby yelled from the bottom of the aisle, probably gaining a lot of people's attention in the store. Without waiting for a response, Ruby continued, with the tik tik tik of her crutches on the tiles sounding through the room, "I haven't had it before but it's peanuts so it can't be that bad, right? Anyways, I'm grabbing four packets, so we can each have one."

Yang looked over to her sister, leaning on the trolley handle again, lightly saying, "There's only three of us, Ruby."

Ruby stopped hobbling over and her eyes narrowed in Yang's direction, left eye twitching. "Are you seriously excluding Zwei right now?"

Yang gave a small snort before a yawn erupted from her. She stayed up late a few nights, trying to get her work done from her classes that she didn't seem to understand the first time around, and she could feel that it was taking a toll on her during the day. But that's college life, right?

While yawning, Yang faintly heard the sound of the packets of peanut puffs hitting the items inside the trolley. She continued slowly to the end of the aisle, hearing her sister hobble closer and closer to her. "How was therapy?" Yang asked.

Ruby grunted when one of her crutches slipped from under her but recovered quickly. "It's coming along, Jaune said that I'm recovering quicker than normal," Ruby replied with a concentrated furrow of the eyebrows, trying her best to not slip again. "He scheduled my appointment for next week."

Yang looked at her sister, a bit surprised and maybe a touch of hope in her voice, "Next week? Not Thursday?"

"Yeah! Isn't that great?" The excitement in her voice pulled a small smile to Yang's face. Ruby was quiet for a moment, turning her concentrated gaze onto Yang. "You doing okay?"

The smile slips from Yang's face for a split second before she covers it up again, but she knew her sister saw it. "I'm fine, Ruby. Why are you asking?" Yang dismissed the panic flaring up in her throat, shifting her gaze to focus on anything but her sister's eyes. Luckily, she saw Weiss begin to reach for another snack from the top shelf, struggling since she is not quite tall enough. "Need some help there, Weiss?" Without waiting for an answer from either of them, Yang walked over and brought the box down before throwing it in the trolley.

Once she started pushing the trolley again, she hoped that Ruby dropped the conversation they were having but, unfortunately, she didn't. "Yang."

"What?" she groaned. She didn't mean to but she couldn't stop the irritation in her voice from slipping out. So she looked over at Ruby, just about ready to make a joke to cover it up when she saw her sister's set jaw, furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips.

The same look she gave Yang when Summer landed up in hospital and it was possible that she wasn't going to recover. Ruby didn't know exactly what was going on at the time and thought that it was just another check-up, so when she saw Yang start to become more serious about being the older sibling in their youth, it had worried Ruby. Yang didn't tell Ruby until a week before Summer passed away, to prepare her sister to say goodbye to their mom. That look that she gave Yang now made her gut twist, she hated seeing that look on her sister's face, it was like being in that hospital again.

She stopped walking and sighed. "Just stressed out is all, I'll tell you later." And with that, Yang sped up and moved into the next aisle, a yawn escaping her once more only to be cut short as she felt her trolley jerk to a stop.

"Hey, watch it."

Yang blinked stupidly at the lady in front of her, her hands gripping the trolley as she watched the lady guide the trolley around her, almost in a bored way, without looking away from the hair products in front of her. Yang could have sworn she knew her from somewhere, that voice was familiar as well as that shade of gold in her eyes.

"Shit, sorry," Yang started with an embarrassed smile, pulling the trolley away and pushing it past the woman. If they knew each other, Yang didn't want to embarrass herself anymore by just staring at a person that she almost accidentally rode her trolley into - but the lady didn't seem to be interested so she supposed it was a good thing. All the more reason to get out of there before she does look back up at her. Yang pulled her cap lower over her head in an attempt to get rid of the embarrassment.

She stopped halfway down the aisle and looked back to see if Weiss and Ruby had followed her. They didn't but Yang's gaze traveled to the woman with dark hair. Where did she know her from? She honestly couldn't remember and it started to bug her as the seconds ticked by. She knew she was staring but she couldn't help it. The more she looked at the woman, the more she saw how pretty she was and the more she wanted to kick herself for having such a bad memory.

A part of her brain that was responsible for most of her bad choices in her life wanted her to go talk to the lady and she hated that she listened. The blonde huffed and muttered, "Fuck it," before turning the trolley around and pushing it towards the lady.

"Uhm, excuse me?" Yang tried, watching carefully as the lady turned the red hair dye box in her hand, glancing up slowly when Yang approached. "Sorry if this sounds weird but you look familiar and I can't think where I know you from…"

Yang trailed off and scratched the back of her neck, she didn't even know how to continue from there. She stood awkwardly with wide eyes before fixing her cap again, anything to keep her hands busy. Abort, abort, abort! Bad idea! Stupid idea!

She knew she should have just turned and walked away, but her body was rooted in its place, refusing to acknowledge any message from her brain to just bolt from there.

But then she saw the lady stand up straight, looking her up and down before her gaze rested on Yang's eyes and a familiar spark flitted across liquid gold. The lady gave a small smirk and her head tilted to the right, the sight so familiar that it only hit her once the lady started talking again.

"I didn't expect to bump into each other so soon," she said, glancing at Yang's trolley as if to say 'literally and figuratively'.

Yang chuckled and leaned on her trolley again, grinning as she recalled her fight at the trials with the woman in front of her. Saying that she enjoyed it was an understatement. "I have been told that I have a unique way of starting conversations," Yang said and she wanted to use the lady's name but all that came to mind was 'Blair', and she knew that wasn't right.

"You left quite the impression in that fight," her smirk growing just a bit more but not too much. Yang saw that her lip was split and she didn't want to reopen it. Probably still raw from their fight? "Still have the marks on my sides and face from then."

Now that she had a closer look, Yang could see small marks on her cheeks and along her nose. But she also saw a bruise, size of a fingertip, peeking out from under the lady's collar. Yang knew for a fact that that couldn't have been from her. But Yang knew too that it could have been from anything, she could have bumped into something, so Yang ignored it.

"Yeah?" Yang couldn't help the grin from spreading. "Well, you definitely weren't so bad yourself, my sister had to drag my body out of bed the day after," she played it down, but Yang didn't want her to know that right now, she had to play it cool, not embarrass herself more than she already did. She felt like dying when she got home from the fight, one of the bad things about full contact was that your body gets put out of commission for the next few days. "Definitely not a bad thing though, I enjoyed the fight."

"Well, I hope so, I wouldn't have wanted my first fight to be a horrible experience for either of us," the lady gave a short chuckle and Yang's brain stopped. She just stared at the lady's smile because fuck…

Then her brain started working again.

"Wait, your first fight?" Yang asked, blinking the daze away. "You never fought before?"

The lady hummed in response, a small smile gracing her features as she walked down the aisle, slow enough for Yang to turn her trolley and catch up with her. "Yup. I've been training for a few years but my boyfriend thought that I was ready to start competitions."

Yang nodded. "Well, he was correct. You kicked my ass," Yang commented, grinning.

The lady looked at her, surprised. "Oh," was all she said before looking down, the smile becoming tight. "Thanks."

Yang's grin didn't leave her face, but when she saw this reaction, she was confused. Maybe Yang came off a bit strong? Maybe she didn't like compliments or maybe she didn't like cussing?

The lady opened her mouth to say something but a loud, "Blake!" sounded through the shop, coming from in front of them. Yang's head shot up in the direction of the man who called out only to see the White Fang trainer from the trials stalking towards them.

The lady sucked in a quick breath and Yang took note of her body tensing in the corner of her eye. That is not a normal reaction to someone so Yang stayed where she was in case something happened.

Wait, the guy yelled 'Blake' and Yang was definitely sure that that was the lady's name.

Blake B-something. Yang remembered that it was a very pretty name and it rolled off the tongue easily. Bella- Bella-something… fuck. She hated that her brain is drawing up blanks, she usually wasn't this bad with names.

When the trainer reached them, he wrapped his arm around Blake's waist and pulled her closer to him. His grip too harsh to be anything protective. "Xiao Long." Yang's gaze flitted from Blake's waist, to the split lip, to the bruise near Blake's neck, then finally landing on the smirk on the guy's face. Red flags were going up in her head but she ignored them.

Yang tilted her head curiously at the man. She knew her club was famous for its… 'rough' fighting but she didn't think that they would be famous enough to be known by name. Maybe it was because she was Tai's kid? Or maybe he remembered her from the fight?

Putting on a fake smile, the one she learnt from Weiss when she got into her business mode, and held her hand out. "Nice to meet you," Yang started, not willing to give her first name to the man. Something didn't seem right about him. "You're from the White Fang, yeah? New club?"

He looked at her hand for a second before he gripped it tightly, a crude smile gracing his features. "Taurus, soon to be leader of the White Fang," he announced proudly when he saw Yang's smile falter a bit because of his grip but he frowned as soon as she started squeezing back.

Yang let go of his hand and, not so subtly, wiped her hand on her jeans before turning a smile onto Blake. "It was great bumping into you, Blake," she said, grinning at the literal meaning behind it but her grin slipped when Blake kept looking down, not looking anywhere but at the floor. Yang's stomach was twisting at the amount of red flags that popped up in her head since the man turned up.

She leveled her stare back at Taurus before pinching the tip of her cap in a mock salute and turning her trolley around, hoping to find her sister and Weiss in the next aisle.

* * *

A few hours later and all three were standing in the kitchen, two sisters staring at their friend as she packed out their cupboards, huffing and scoffing as she went. "Seriously, do you guys have no order in your house?" Weiss shot their way once she was finished with that particular cupboard. She turned and gave them her signature level stare, eyes narrowing a bit, challenging them to get in her way. "Where are your baking things?"

Yang pointed to the corner cupboard, staying far away from Weiss. Yang knew that once Weiss got into this… mood, there was no stopping her.

Weiss already cleaned and reorganised Ruby's room the first time she stayed over, much to Ruby's dismay. 'It was an organised mess!' Ruby yelled when she walked in. 'I knew where everything was but now it's just organised and I don't know where anything is! It's way too clean!'

Ruby's phone rang from beside Yang and she answered it, placing the device between her shoulder and her ear and she hobbled out the room to take it. "Hi, dad!" Yang heard Ruby say into her phone as she turned the corner, and she just rolled her eyes. Tai had been calling Yang all day since they left the shop and she wasn't in the mood to talk to him, turned her phone on silent even. She probably had a dozen messages from him, all still not read.

Yang focused on her friend instead, wanting not to dwell on her father at the moment. "How's your sister?" Yang asked lightly, hoping to keep her mind busy. She walked over to grab a packet of biscuits from one of the bags on the counter next to Weiss and Weiss slapped her hand away before glaring at Yang.

"She's been having Robyn over constantly and I can't handle it. Always texting me to not come home, they are busy or whatever," Weiss dismisses, ears turning red and Yang can't help but chuckle. "Why are you laughing? I didn't say anything funny," she muttered while stretching for the top shelf, just barely shifting the flour onto it with an uncharacteristic grunt.

Yang lifted an eyebrow at her friend, a small smirk slowly making its way onto her features as she leaned against the cupboards "I take it that you have walked in on them, that's why they message you first, yeah?" She asked, already laughing when Weiss's face started to become bright red. "Is that why you wanna move out?"

"You have not seen your sister going down on someone else before and you should be happy that you probably never will!" Weiss reeled off, flustered enough that Yang could practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

Yang chuckled, grateful that she didn't ever have to experience that but went silent as she looked at all the hair products still in the bags, making her think back to their shopping trip and to Blake.

"Blake was there in the shop with us," she stated, words coming out before she had a chance to think them over. It came out with no importance behind it, just her basically informing Weiss that Blake was there. Yang didn't know why her mouth needed to say it but since it was out there, there was no way of taking it back. So might as well roll with it.

"Oh?" Weiss feigned interest. Yang knew that she didn't know Blake by name, probably only knows her as the woman who Yang fought. But Yang appreciated that Weiss was willing to play along.

Yang hummed, staring off to the other side of the kitchen, playing with the hem of her shirt as she remembered after their fight at the trials, Blake had curled in on herself and looked towards Taurus as if she was afraid that she would upset him or something when Yang held out her hand. "That trainer guy from the White Fang club - the one with the red dyed hair?" She started, huffing a laugh when Weiss scrunched up her nose in disgust.

"Yeah, I remember him, and dying his hair won't make him look 'cooler' or whatever. And who dyes their hair in pieces?"

"A lot of people do it."

"Well, I think it looks stupid."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Apparently, he is Blake's boyfriend. Found out today when I spoke to her."

"Okay, and? Who's Blake?" Weiss asked, finally taking an interest in the conversation as she closed the cupboard and opening the one at her feet before placing detergents in the corner of it.

"Remember that woman I fought against at the trials?" Weiss nodded. "Yeah, that's Blake."

Weiss furrowed her eyebrows in thought before shoving more things into the cupboard. "I thought 'Blake' was a man's name…" she muttered, probably didn't know that Yang could hear her. When she straightened up to pull more items into the cupboard, she asked, "What was the point of bringing this up, Yang?" She glanced Yang's way before diving back into sorting through the cupboard. "Did he do something that caught your attention?"

Yang wanted to answer, tell her that many things caught her attention with the trainer, that he gave her bad vibes, made her stomach twist at the fear she saw in Blake's eyes, that spark dying instantly whenever she saw him. But she chose to avoid saying those things instead. She probably won't see her again so why should she dwell on it.

"Ruby wants to dye the ends of her hair red," Yang informed Weiss instead, grinning as she watched the slow turn of the gears in her friend's head before Weiss turned her head in Yang's direction with a stern glare.

"I still think it's stupid." And Yang laughed again.

"Yang, someone's on the call for you!" Ruby called from the other room.

"I know it's dad!" She yelled back, her laughter replaced with a grimace. She really didn't want to speak to him.

"No, it isn't!" Ruby yelled back but Yang could hear her sister's tone, she knew that she was lying. She rolled her eyes and snatched the packet of biscuits before Weiss could slap her hand away again.

"Look," Weiss muttered carefully, placing a few more things into the cupboard, either ignoring what Yang did or she just didn't see it happen. "Just go see what he wants, feel free to cut the call afterwards, but it might be important."

Yang's lip curled in Weiss's direction, irritation flaring in her chest, said, "No thanks" and stalked off to her room, slamming the door behind her and throwing the biscuits onto her desk. She stared at her desk for a bit before turning to her bed, silently declaring that she is a bit too tired to put her energy to studying. Laying down, she turned over and buried her face into the pillows, letting out a frustrated groan.

She couldn't believe that Weiss would try to convince her to talk to Tai too. Weiss knew what had happened, had her own problems with her own father so Yang expected Weiss to relate to her on some level. Guess she thought wrong.

* * *

A few weeks have passed and there still weren't any announcements from the trials and that made Yang restless. Even though she had been picked for the B Team a few times over the years, it didn't make it any less stressful.

Right now, she and Nora were standing by the board that usually held all the notices for upcoming events, searching for the trials list. "Find anything?" Yang asked, checking out the list of competition days. Looks like there was a development tournament on the weekend. She would have to ask her boss for half-day leave again.

"Nope," Nora grunted, throwing her head back and groaning. "How long is it gonna take?"

Once her gloves were secure, Yang tapped Nora's bicep. "Come on, we can check it after the class. Maybe Tai would put it up before class ends."

Nora slipped her gum guard into her mouth and turned her attention to Yang, slipping her hands into their gloves. "Why do you call him Tai and not Dad?" Nora asked, her hand outstretched for Yang to tap her own hand against in greeting.

Yang tensed up and gritted her teeth. "He's not my father during class," Yang said, voice strained even to her own ears at the practiced excuse. "He's my sensei and I'm just like any other student here. Keeps people from thinking he favors me over everyone else."

The truth, even though it's not the actual reason.

After Yang threw the first punch and Nora parried like it was nothing, Nora tilted her head to the side before saying, "But he pushes you harder than the rest of us."

Yang grunted as she brought her hands up to cover her face at the combination of attacks Nora threw. "Yeah, well, some people don't see it as such," and Yang breathed out quickly as she swung her leg, catching Nora in her side.

Nora sidestepped Yang to get better access to her side and threw a hook to Yang's short ribs. The air left Yang's lungs as she curled in on her side from the impact. Nora threw another hook to her abdomen but Yang was able to block this one and counter with an uppercut.

They exchanged blows, earning a small audience from the younger generation as they stared at the two women in awe, until Tai called out, "Change!" and they touched gloves before switching to the next person to fight.

Roy came to Yang as soon as she was free from Nora and tapped her thigh, gaining her attention. She put her hands on her knees, breathing hard as she gave him a grin. "What's up, bud?" She asked around her gum guard. "You wanna fight me?"

He nodded and she smiled, happy about him coming to her on his own, "Alright." She waited a few seconds to get her breath back before moving over to the other wall, away from the rest of the students.

"Okay, you ready?" Yang asked and he nodded again before furrowing his eyebrows in concentration. "Alright, come at me." She didn't hear Tai shout that they should begin but she didn't care. She just started fighting Roy, lightly tapping her gloves in the places he didn't cover, showing him how he should block, and fixing his punches a bit. He seemed to do well with kicking so she didn't do anything with that. But overall, she was proud with how far he came, she saw how much he had improved since she was there last and at the end of the fight, she was sure to tell him that.

He gave her a toothy smile before touching his glove to hers, thanking her for the help and Yang's heart swelled, reminding her of all the times Ruby had improved on something when they were younger.

At the end of the night, Yang and Nora zipped over to the notice board, tumbling over each other and laughing all the way and the first thing they noticed was a new page, right in the center with two highlighted names.

Nora Valkyrie: Semi contact, Light contact - Team B

Yang snorted at that. At least she made the team this time. She gave a light punch to the gingerhead's shoulder in silent congratulations before she turned her attention back to the page again, eyebrows lifting in surprise.

Yang Xiao Long: Full contact - Team A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Still don't know where I am going with this but I hope things still make sense.
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

Once Roy left with a wave from his parents' car, Taiyang and Yang stood in the parking lot, the silence around them a bit too still and the air just a bit too cold for any summer clothes to keep their bodies warm. Yang was grateful for her jacket at the moment. 

The moment Taiyang turned towards his car without a single word in her direction, Yang saw it as a cheek and anger instantly flared up in her chest. "So that's it, huh?" she called out, stopping Taiyang as he reached for his car door handle. 

"What do you want, Yang?" she heard him say, his voice tired even from this distance. 

"Full contact? Really?" she called out, irritation laced in her voice. "What happened to asking your fighters first?"

She saw him straighten up before turning around, an accusing look in his eye. She had been on the receiving end of that look far too many times and she immediately steeled herself for an argument she knew was coming as soon as she saw her name on the list.

"You know what, Yang," her father said as he walked closer to her. "I did. I tried so many times to get ahold of you but you either ignore my messages and emails or you cut the calls. _You_ did that." 

Her jaw clenched because she did ignore his texts and calls for a while. But he also could have spoken to her when she came to training. She would have listened.

"And during training, you avoided me like the plague," Tai added as if he read her mind. "I'm sorry, but I'm not here to run after you. Ironwood had asked me if you wanted to do full contact because he saw you fight. He said that you were suited for-"

"So you just listened to him?" Yang asked, disbelief in her tone. A small gust of wind blew past them and Yang pulled her jacket tighter around her, trying to keep the cold out. 

Taiyang narrowed his eyes at her. "I told him that I'd talk to you, and that was why the list took so long to come out." His hand gestured vaguely in her direction. "He waited for your response but since you didn't even want to talk to me, I told him to go for it. He is right, you are suited for full contact."

She huffed in frustration and looked off to the side. "I don't want to do full contact, but no. You always think you know better when it comes to me." He opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off, having the need to get her point across. "If you knew your own daughter better and actually spent time with her over the years, you would know that she would rather not get fucked up in the ring." It wasn’t the actual reason but it was close enough.

A beat of silence. 

"You either think you know what I want or you just continuously bring up all the shit I did wrong," she almost yelled, leaning up off her bike. "When mom died, _I_ made sacrifices for the family while _you_ sat around drinking yourself into a standstill. _I_ had to be the adult and make sure that Ruby was taken care of."

"I already apologised for that," he said evenly. 

She folded her arms again, trying to keep her hands from shaking with anger. "Apologising doesn't make it go away. You cannot bring all those years back just by saying sorry! I don’t fucking care that you apologised, I had gone through shit because you refused to believe that there was other answers besides alcohol!” 

They stood there, a car drove past, the only sound that travelled through the stiff night air. 

She knew she hit a nerve, the wrong one. And at this moment, she couldn’t say that she regretted it, she didn’t care. She wanted him to know how much she hurt, she  _ needed _ him to know.

First few seconds, a lot of emotions crossed his face and Yang took note of each one with a heavy thud in her chest. First, she saw hurt cross his features and then he looked down, breathing heavily as he grit his teeth in guilt only for it to be covered up with cold anger as he looked up at her. Her stomach dropped at the familiar sight.

Taiyang threw his hands up in the air as he walked back to his car, throwing one last glare over his shoulder. "Once you stop being angry at the world, then you can come talk to me about what I have done," he climbed in and slammed his door shut with an audible creek, making Yang flinch for a moment. "But until then, get your shit together."

Yang watched him reverse out of the parking lot before looking down and unfolding her arms, hands resting on her bike's seat and tank, the feeling grounding her as her anger started to boil down. 

Her father was right. It wasn’t the best response but he was right. She hated that he was but she needed to get her shit together or else she would be bringing more than just herself down. And she could not do that to the people around her.

* * *

She tried but she didn't feel like she was getting anywhere. That feeling of being on autopilot was becoming more and more prominent as the days went on. 

She hardly slept, had a bite or two when she made dinner for Ruby and Weiss and she could feel her concentration slipping quicker and quicker each time she opened her schoolwork. Her manager took sympathy on her the one day when she almost fell off her chair from sleep deprivation during work and she gave Yang a half an hour to take a nap in the back of the shop. Yang would forever be grateful for the fact that her manager left her to sleep even when her forty winks hit the fifty five minute mark.

Nothing seemed to be getting better but she sighed in relief when she sat down in the bleachers of the hall, eyes closing, head lolling back against the seat behind her as she listened to the gentle hubbub surrounding her.

Development tournaments were always her favourite. Always filled with excited children who often bounced around with energy that Yang wished she had at that point and the general atmosphere was great. It was welcoming.

Some were there to experience their first fights, some were there to practice new styles and some were there to just have fun. Development tournaments always had a place for everyone and it wasn't as formal as the trials, making everyone feel at ease.

She smiled. This is where she wanted to be.

"Oh wow, so she is capable of human emotions."

Yang pointed in her sister's direction, well, where she thought Ruby's voice came from, and announced in a bored tone without moving from her spot, "Watch it, just because you're injured doesn't mean I won't kick your ass."

She heard Ruby giggle and Yang brought her head up to look at Ruby and Weiss, who were both staring at her with small smiles.

"What?" Yang asked and shifted in place.

Weiss looked at Ruby before sitting down next to Yang, that smile still in place. "Nothing. Just…" Weiss started but trailed off before patting Yang's knee as she looked out towards the people on the floors. 

Yang rolled her eyes when Weiss didn't continue but let her drop the subject, instead turning to her sister who just finished squeezing the crutches into the small space between the bleachers. "You hungry?" Yang asked, knowing that her sister should be since they left the apartment too early for her to be able to make breakfast.

"Starving." And that was all Yang needed to pull herself up from her spot and make her way to the tuckshop just outside the hall to get food for her sister and her closest friend.

As she turned the corner, a dark figure almost walked directly into Yang, carrying two hot cups of coffee in their hands. Without hesitation, Yang reached out just in time for the cups, keeping them steady as the person lightly bumped into her, apparently yelling something back to the tuckshop ladies just a moment before the collision, not seeing Yang and Yang not having enough time to sidestep the whole ordeal.

So there she stood, face to face with Blake and her hands around the cups covering the other woman's fingers as they both tried to steady the beverages, although she did feel the left cup spill a bit.

Once Blake got her bearings right and stepped away from Yang with a small chuckle, Yang grinned at seeing the other woman again. "We gotta stop meeting like this, people are gonna start talking," she joked, earning a snort from Blake.

"Just admit that you liked me kicking your butt and you couldn't get enough so you started stalking me," Blake shot back and tilted her head to the side, raising her brow and letting a smile grace her features. The challenge dropped from her eyes as her expression became softer when she asked. "How have you been… Yang, was it?"

Yang hummed and hooked her thumbs into her belt, rocking onto her heels and back onto her toes. "I've been okay. College is just kicking my ass at the moment." Yang turned in the direction she just came from and started walking slowly, letting Blake walk beside her. "How about you? You doing okay?"

When Yang looked at Blake as they walked, she saw the lady run her tongue along the almost healed sore on her lip and Yang couldn't pull her eyes away from the movement until Blake spoke up. "Mostly okay, yeah. Just trying to look for a job at the moment," she answered with a huff, eyebrows slightly furrowed in what Yang assumes to be irritation.

Yang looked ahead of them and she noticed that Blake seemed to slow down her pace as they entered the main hall, so she slowed to match it. "I take it that it's not going well?" she asked.

"Nope," Blake said, popping the 'p'. "Kinda difficult when you still don't have a stable place to stay. Employers only look for 'consistency'." Yang had a feeling that people used that excuse a lot on Blake judging by her tone. 

Curiosity bubbled up inside of her as she looked at Blake again. "Where do you stay at the moment?"

She looked at Yang curiously for a moment before saying, "We’re staying at a friend's house while we look for places to stay. You say you're in college?" 

Yang could sense that Blake did the sudden change of subject on purpose so she went with it, not wanting to make the other woman uncomfortable. "Yeah, I'm working towards physical therapy but I have to do bridging courses first. So it's gonna take some time."

Blake nodded as if she understood and maybe she did or she was doing that to just keep the conversation going. Either way, Yang was grateful for the lack of judgement. 

Yang looked Blake over again and this time, took in her attire. Her oversized pitch black shirt, save for the rose insignia on the back, hung loosely on her frame, untucked from her pants. She didn't wear her belt so her shirt covered the first few letters of 'White Fang' that ran down the sides of her pants which ran way past her ankles. Lastly, Yang noticed a pair of feet sticking out from under the pants legs, with purple butterfly patterns on the socks covering them. She just had to chuckle at that.

She also noticed that Blake seemed more relaxed than what she had seen the other times with the trials and at the store. Her shoulders didn't look like they were pulled up to her ears and she had a small smile on her face that never left, her eyes bright with just calm happiness. 

"So uhh, I'm just gonna take this coffee to my friend and- what?" Blake had looked over at Yang and Yang realised only then that she was still staring at Blake.

Panic bubbled in her chest as she searched for an excuse to cover up what just happened. Sure, she felt happy that Blake looked at least a bit carefree today compared to the other times she saw her but this time, Yang had a funny feeling growing in the pit of her stomach and she just couldn't suppress the panic. "Oh uhh, nun-nothing. Uhh," and Yang spotted a tiny white fluff ball that landed on Blake's shoulder and hurriedly reached out to pluck it off her. Blake, suspicious of her every move, leaned out of the way for abit until she saw what Yang was doing and relaxed. "Just uhh, you know," Yang started again while flicking the fluff off to the side and shrugging, trying to act normal again. "It caught my eye so I didn't want to be rude and just leave it there." 

_What the hell was she saying?_

A long moment passed between them and Blake finally lifted an eyebrow, disbelief in her voice as she drawled out, "Right… Well, I'll see you later, Yang." She turned and started making her way up to the top of the bleachers and handing her cup over to Ilia. Yang noticed that Taurus wasn't in sight even when she looked around the hall. 

Yang glanced back at Blake and Ilia before making her way over to her sister and Weiss, plomping down in her seat as she let out a tired sigh, hand ruffling through her fringe to help distract her from the feeling in her stomach.

She heard Ruby clear her throat and turned her way, eyebrows raising expectedly. "What?"

Mouth slightly open and eyebrows furrowed in confusion, Ruby simply said, "Uh, food?" only for Yang to groan in response, head hitting the seat behind her.

Right, fuck.

* * *

"Oh my f- Yang!"

"Not so hard, Yang. Weiss is fragile," Ruby teased, a grin on her face from where she sat on the beam off to the side - safe from where Weiss was.

Weiss huffed before grunting against the pad where Yang kicked. 

"Relax," Yang grinned and threw another kick at the pad, making Weiss stumble to the side a bit before regaining her balance. "I'm not hurting her. I'm kicking softly - it's a warm up after all."

Weiss clicked her tongue in annoyance. "You call this-" _Kick._ "Ugh! Soft? I'm barely standing!"

Yang chuckled but softened her kicks so that her foot just gently taps against the pad, hearing a sigh of relief from her friend. 

"Switch!" Ruby yelled and Weiss brought the pads up to her other side right before Yang brought her leg up and kicked.

They went through the drills with kicks and punches for a bit before they made her go through the combinations, Weiss being the unfortunate target. 

Every now and then, Yang would look over to her sister for a split second before continuing with the warm ups. She saw that Ruby was trying to not make it obvious by placing both hands on her thighs but the one on her injured leg looked to be pressing down a bit more than the other one and she saw a few times that Ruby was rubbing her leg. A clear sign that her sister was in pain again. 

Throughout the warm ups, Ruby didn't show that she was in pain or say that she was so as they walked into the hall again, Yang dug in her tog bag for the little bag that held all the medication for her sister. Once found, she took two painkillers out of the appropriate container and handed Ruby her water and the pills.

Ruby looked confused at first but once she saw Yang's expression, she sighed and took the medication, handing the water back over once she was done.

A few minutes later, Yang was laying her head back on the seat behind her and had her eyes closed, waiting for the announcer to call her name. 

Instead she heard someone shout from the left, "You got this, Blake! Go kick some ass!" It was loud against the murmur of the hall so it gained a lot of attention, including Yang's.

Her head jerked up and her eyes immediately looked for gold, finding it relatively easy because Blake gave an embarrassed chuckle in the sudden silence that followed the loud shout from a second before. Yang saw her give a small wave in the direction of the shout and covered her laugh with her other hand. Yang looked to the side and saw Ilia silently cheering for Blake now.

Yang chuckled and her attention was brought back to Blake who made her way to the other side of the hall, a grin still on her face at the silliness of the situation. 

She watched as Blake's group readied themselves and soon she heard her own name was called. 

She got ready and made her way to the floor, reminding her sister to not walk around unless it's necessary. When she made it past the railing that separated the bleachers from the mats, Yang saw her father standing by the mat she was supposed to fight on. 

Of course he was there, he was her sensei after all. 

She dropped her bag down beside him and grabbed her gloves before standing up and watching the fight happening on the floor at the moment, the rest of her gear already on from when she went to warm up.

They stood in silence for a while. Yang didn't know what to say, if she wanted to say anything at all. After all that had happened, she couldn't even think of what to say. 

"I'm really sorry."

She blinked. "What?"

"I'm sorry," her father repeated, seeming just as unsure as she was. "I've been thinking about what you said. I shouldn't have put you both through all that when you were still in high school. I should have done better."

Her jaw clenched with the effort of trying not to scowl at him. He was apologising, she shouldn't be angry right now. She shouldn't. She shouldn't. 

"Yeah, you should have." But she was. 

It wasn't as easy as saying 'Yeah I'm angry that he drank so much, I had to leave school so I could be a functioning adult where my own father couldn't be.' It was so much more than that. So, so, _so much more_ than just that.

She had gone around, begging places to hire her but almost none of them would hire her since she was underage at the time. She eventually found a place that would hire her off the books after she pleaded with the manager and explained her situation. She had been working there ever since.

Of course it also wasn't just that, her home situation wasn't as good as people thought. Walking in through her front door at the time was a whole other level of stress. If it wasn't for her uncle to get her father to a rehab, her father wouldn't have been where he was now. She was happy that he came right but… it was still too late to fix everything that had happened.

"Yeah," she heard her father mutter, regret clear in his voice. A minute of silence happens and he sighs, making Yang glance at him from the corner of her eye. "We can have a proper talk after this if you want because right now, you have to fight and I gotta make sure that you’re okay to go on with a clear head." 

She turned to him, actually considering it because, as he had said, she needed to get her shit together. Maybe starting with fixing the relationship between them was the key to putting everything else into place. She had nothing left to lose honestly.

"Yeah, we can do that," she responded, giving him a small tight smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. So this took a while because writing arguments is really difficult for me since I try and avoid any and all confrontation irl, so I am really sorry if it sounds jerky or short or just not well paced at all. At least Yang is trying to work through her things now, right? 
> 
> On another note, I hope you all enjoy your holidays and that you have a great new years! Best wishes to everyone, stay safe, keep healthy and I wish you all the best for the years to come!


	6. Chapter 6

There were seven of them in the group and Yang came out with a bronze. Not too bad, if she could say so herself. She grinned when the medal was placed around her neck and once the awards were done, her muscles protested but she threw her hands up and turned to where her sister and Weiss were supposed to be in the bleachers. They weren't there and her arms awkwardly hung in the air as she tried to spot her sister and friend in the crowd.

 _I told her to not walk around unless she needed too,_ Yang groaned and rolled her shoulders forward, slumping in on herself while realising that this would be a common thing.

“We’re over here, Yang,” she heard Weiss say from behind her, the eyeroll evident in her voice.

Yang turned and walked over to them, an exhausted smile on her face as she sat down at their feet, grateful that she could finally start relaxing. Her muscles are really sore and they screamed against any movement she made. One of the women she fought targeted her biceps, which helped them in the later rounds as her arms grew tired quickly.

She started taking off her gear and packing them into her bag, which Weiss brought with her from the other side of the mat where Yang had originally put her stuff. “I told you to stay put, Ruby,” she tried half-heartedly, knowing where this would go.

“Yeah, well, “ Ruby said and Yang looked up at her, seeing her sister shrug. “I got bored.” Ruby gave her a huge grin, she knew exactly what she was doing and they all knew it.

Yang rolled her eyes and chuckled, shaking her head. _Of course, she got bored._

“So, where’s dad?” Yang asked, her grin slipping as she started to notice that her father wasn’t around. She wouldn’t say that it was disappointment but something did stir inside of her. She looked down and stuffed the last of her padding into the bag a little more aggressively than she would have liked as the feeling got just a smidge more intense.

"Oh, he said that he had to sort a few things out-" Ruby started but stopped when Yang muttered under her breath.

"Sure," she couldn't stop the disbelief from entering her voice. Yang heard that excuse before, many times before. She knew that he would pull something like this, just as she was ready to fix things, he bails. Figures.

Yang stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder, looking around the area they were standing in to spot any of her gear that she might have left. Finding nothing, she started to make her way to the doors but Weiss stopped her by the arm.

"Before you jump to conclusions, like you usually do," Weiss said and Yang turned her way, wanting to pull her arm free but not finding the resolve to. She wanted to listen to her friend. She really wanted to. " He told us specifically to not let you get the wrong idea. He said that he is coming back."

Weiss looked at her with the most honest expression Yang had seen on her friend's face in a while, pleading for Yang to just wait it out. Every ounce of Yang's body tensed up, wanting to rip her arm away from Weiss and storm off. Slam a door or kick a chair over in anger or just… something. But she couldn't, because she wanted to believe that her father was dragged off to do something and will come back to talk things through. She wanted to believe that if she gave him a chance to talk this out, she won't be dragging Ruby and Weiss down.

She looked over at her sister, who was watching her carefully with her lips pulled into a tight line and her eyebrows furrowed in concern. Fuck.

_Get your shit together._

Yang breathed in and then out, feeling some of the irritation leave her as she nodded. She just needed to be patient. Patience is what she needed.

After a few moments, she looked around the hall. At the many people that crowded the floor, the mats that held fights were surrounded with club members or family members. Then she looked to the far corner where a few of the senseis were standing, Ironwood in front of them and handing out papers. Her father had been called off, he didn't bail. At least not this time. She jumped to conclusions this time and she needed to stop it.

Breathe in, breath out.

"Okay," she looked at her sister again, making a silent promise. She will get her shit together. "Okay."

She relaxed in Weiss' hold, giving them both a small smile. Weiss looked at Yang carefully, probably trying to see what she was thinking.

"I've gotta go and change out of this breast guard, I'll be back in a few minutes then," Yang told Weiss, slowly pulling her friend's hand off her arm and giving it a squeeze and then turned back to Ruby, gaze softening when she saw her sister yawn. The meds are finally kicking in. Yang dug in her bag and pulled out her jacket, handing it over to Ruby. "Here, take this. Take a nap while I'm gone."

Once Yang said that, she saw Ruby deflate from putting up a front and exhaustion took over as she nodded, taking Yang's jacket and slinging it over her shoulder before hobbling off to the bleachers.

Weiss looked off after Ruby. "Her leg again." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, but you know how she is. She wouldn't tell you she's in pain so it might be more than her leg. Apparently, her shoulder hasn't been giving her trouble but, it could also be that, you know?" Yang muttered, tugging her bag tighter onto her shoulder, guilt rising up in her throat as she stared after her sister for a few seconds before she practically pulled her eyes away from her, focusing her attention on Weiss instead. "I'll get you some coffee on the way back."

"Thanks."

* * *

When Yang entered the changing room, she stopped, holding the door in place, when she heard a familiar voice whisper in anger.

"You told me to come here! Don't turn this on me," Yang heard Blake say, a moment of silence followed before she spoke again. "Right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Yang didn't hear any response so she figured that Blake was talking on the phone. She sounded so defeated at the end of it when she told the person that she was sorry once more and told them that she loved them. Realising that she shouldn't be eavesdropping on people, she cleared her throat and opened the door more, a loud creak echoed through the almost empty room.

_Just act normal._

Yang heard fumbling before the sound of an object hitting the cement floor echoed through the room and a soft, "Shit, man," sounded after.

The changing rooms were all styled in similar ways. Showers one side, stalls the other side (urinals would take up half the space of the stalls in the men's bathrooms) and directly in the centre, a half wall that came up to Yang's shoulders divided the stalls and showers, basins lining up one after the other on both sides of the wall.

Blake was on the other side, her bag and gear on the bench in front of one of the showers, her wraps laid out haphazardly on the floor just below the bag. Yang looked up.

Blake looked distressed as she looked her phone over.

"Broken?" Yang asked, knowing her fair share of devices that broke after landing on the floor. Most was on pure accident, but maybe one or two she broke by throwing when she was angry in her early teen years.

Blake sighed and slumped onto the bench. "Yeah," she said slowly, pressing the power button in and waiting for a bit before giving up when the blank screen didn't change. "It was my boyfriend's old phone," she puffed out her cheeks before grabbing her wraps off the floor and started to roll them up. "About time that it broke but he's not gonna be pleased." Blake let out a small breathy laugh, but there was something odd about it and Yang couldn't put her finger on it.

Instead, Yang set her bag down near Blake's bag and sat down, taking off her boots and shin pads. She remembered how Blake had looked to Adam for permission when they fought, how he had grabbed her waist in the store and pulled her into his side, as if showing Yang that he claims Blake. Yang remembered all the red flags that went off in her head whenever he came up and her eyebrows furrowed in thought.

"Does he get angry often?" She asked lightly, keeping it as much of a conversation as she could. She kept looking down while she undid her gear, but when she didn't get an answer and instead heard Blake pull her bag onto the floor with a soft thump qns dragged it between her feet.

Blake had her elbows resting on her knees as she continued to roll her wraps, leaning over her bag. She shrugged, "I mean, everyone gets angry sometimes. Different circumstances for different people so you cannot really measure if a person gets angry often or not. It honestly depends on what situations are thrown at a person," Blake said and Yang couldn't bring herself to disagree.

People do get angry, it is part of living, but it shouldn't be unnecessarily anger, which is something she knows she has to work on herself.

"But to answer your question, no, he doesn't get angry often," Blake added hesitantly, as if she was picking her words wisely.

That odd feeling came back but Yang ignored it, opting to lighten the atmosphere that was begging to feel tense - a sign that they were on a topic that Blake didn't like.

She chuckled a bit. "Do you always take the long way to answer questions?" Yang teased, grinning when she saw Blake roll her eyes with an easy smile crossing her features.

They continued to change out of their gear, making idle conversation all the way out to the bleachers, where Blake stopped, eyes scanning the crowd before sighing.

Blake turned to her and started rubbing her thumb's nail against her eyebrow. "Yang? May I ask you a favor?" Blake asked hesitantly, just loud enough for Yang to hear her.

"Shoot."

"May I borrow your phone? I need to let Adam know that I'm ready to go home. I can't really with this..." she lifted her phone with a blank cracked screen, looking down in shame before she continued when Yang just blinked at her. "I would have asked my friend but it seems that she already went home and I know no one else here…" she trailed off nervously.

Yang blinked again. "Sure," she said and pulled out her phone, unlocked it and handed it to Blake. "Do you wanna hang with us while you wait for him?" Yang offered, giving Blake a small smile while the lady typed her message so quickly, Yang was sure that some parts of her thumbs were liquid because they weren't supposed to move like that.

Handing Yang's phone back, Blake looked up at her, worry in her voice. "You sure? I don't want to intrude on-"

"I am definitely sure."

And Blake smiled with relief.

* * *

Ruby slept the whole time on the bleachers until they had to leave, Yang's jacket tucked neatly under her ear. Yang introduced Blake and Weiss to each other and mentioned that Ruby was the one snoozing on the seat. Blake had worriedly asked if she was comfy and Ruby seemed to answer with a snort and rubbed her nose before soft snores pulled from her lips again.

Blake and Weiss didn't talk much and Weiss kept looking Blake over with side glances and a suspicious squint of her eyes whenever Yang and Blake spoke.

Yang knew almost nothing about the woman and within the five minutes that they had spoken, she knew exactly two things: Blake was Yang and Weiss's age and she absolutely adored gummy sweets. Yang had pulled out a stick of wine gums out of her bag from her earlier visit to the tuckshop and Blake's eyes zeroed in on them as soon as she heard the crinkle.

Yang chuckled, opened it and offered to Blake first who looked up at Yang with happiness scrunching up her eyes when she took a few, and who groaned in satisfaction when she popped one into her mouth. Yang gave the rest to Weiss as she continued to stare at Blake out of curiosity.

"You're staring again…" Blake muttered with her hand in front of her mouth, cheeks going red with embarrassment as she tried to keep eye contact with Yang, tilting her head down and looking at Yang through her eyelashes.

"Sorry," not sorry at all, Yang continued to grin at Blake. "I just haven't seen anyone get so excited over these sweets before."

Blake popped the next one into her mouth, "Never had them a lot where I grew up." That was when Taurus walked in and Yang remembered the smile slowly be replaced with one that didn't reach her eyes.

She watched as Blake grabbed her bag and hopped down to where her boyfriend was, brought her hand up that held the rest of the sweets and popped one into his mouth, giving him a small toothy smile, but Yang could see that her eyes didn't have the shine from before.

Taurus had chewed the sweet, smiled at Blake and gave her a kiss on the forehead before he whispered something to her.

Yang unashamedly stared at them. Something about him didn't sit well with her and she was dying to just figure out what it was. She had an inkling of an idea but Yang was working on her tendency to jump to conclusions, so she had to see it actually happen.

Blake nodded and smiled up at him before turning to Yang and Weiss, giving them a small wave goodbye.

After that, Taiyang called while they were on their way out and they agreed to call and talk during her lunch break the next day. She let herself smile a bit because he still wanted to talk. He wasn't just gonna leave it as is. That intense feeling from earlier came back, but started to die down once they ended the call. Once they got to the door, Yang had looked back to the corner of the hall where some of the senseis were crowded and saw her father standing off to the side, papers under his arm and writing something down on a clipboard. But she saw him looking their way and tentatively waving, and for once in a long time, Yang waved back with a small smile on her face.

Once they got home, Yang immediately showered and got ready for work. If she left in the next half an hour, she would still be able to work for half day and Yang couldn't afford to waste this half day if she wanted to continue doing tournaments. She felt sluggish from earlier but she still needed to work.

Rushing out to the kitchen, she saw Ruby on the couch and Weiss collecting boxes that were piled to the side of the lounge and taking them to their room.

"Alright, I'm leaving," Yang announced as she walked to the front door, patting her pockets to make sure her keys and wallet were there. "See you guys later!"

"Yang wait!" Yang groaned but still held the door open, looking back at her sister. "We need to talk," her sister said seriously, peering over the couch at her.

Yang rolled her eyes. "I have work in a few-"

"Not now! Later. When you come home," Ruby said nervously. "It's important."

Yang stared at Ruby for a few seconds before she nodded. "Okay, we'll talk later then." She gave her sister a smile and she was off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, a bit of a shorter chapter, but I still hope you enjoy!
> 
> Let me know what you think😊 stay healthy, stay safe!


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